my golden birthday + a gender reveal

Yesterday was my birthday and a very special one in fact. I turned 24 on the 24th therefore it made it my golden birthday. I have looked forward to this birthday for several years and always hoped I would do something special/memorable for it. I never imagined I would be pregnant, finding out the gender of our baby, and crossing something off my bucket list all in the same day!

We had our first ultrasound in the afternoon and holy heavens I about peed my pants right there on their waiting room couch. It turns out 32 ounces of water, 45 minutes before an ultrasound for a pregnant lady is total torcher! Luckily they let me use the bathroom right before going back otherwise I don't think it would have been as comfortable of an experience. haha The moment the ultrasound tech squirted the gel on my tummy and our baby showed up on the screen I was completely mesmerized. I will admit, the majority of the time I didn't quite understand what I was looking at because she kept switching angles and the baby kept moving positions but it didn't matter because all I could see was this sweet little squirming baby that Nic and I had been dying to see.

She began walking us through each body part and had both of us nervous at times when she would pause for long periods of time to zoom in or take measurements without saying anything. We found relief in the moments that would follow with "everything is looking healthy and perfect". When she got to the gender she asked us if we wanted to guess and while it seemed SO obvious, we were both still afraid to guess wrong because seriously, what I thought was the head a moment ago now appeared to be on the other side and was now the heart. haha So we left the deciphering up to her.

It was 45 minutes of heaven getting to see wiggles and hear that healthy little heartbeat again. I also beamed when she said the little hand was being laid on under the head... just like how I sleep. :) We walked on cloud 9 the rest of the day!!

As for the bucket list part of the day... I have always wanted to send a floating lantern into the sky and make a wish. It not only was a special moment for the two of us to share as we sent that little lantern into the sky with our wishes but it made for the perfect gender reveal. A big thank you to my father-in-law for being our videographer!